 So for everyone in the room, Senator Baruth, who is the chair of the committee, was called to appropriations to discuss with, as we call the corner office, about funding. So that's where he is. We'll be back in a few minutes or as soon as Jane is done with him. And that's true for Senator Bray as well, who chairs another committee. I'm Senator Ballant, I'm a vice chair, and we're gonna call people up to give testimony just a minute, but I thought it might be helpful for those of you who aren't usually in the State House to know who all of us are. We'll start here. So I am State Senator Carolyn Branigan, I represent Franklin County, and one town in Alberg. I'm Debbie Nguyen-Burman, I represent Chittenden County. And I'm Senator Joel Benning, I represent Caledonia County. And I don't think I had mentioned I represent Wyndham County. I had Senator Bruth represents Chittenden, Senator Bray represents Addison, okay? So what we're taking up now is S-231, an act relating to the creation of a tuition-free scholarship program for Vermont students. And I'm wondering if Natasha Lewis is in the room? I am. Okay, great. Do you mind coming up here into the witness chair? Right here. What we do is we record our proceedings, so people who are not able to be here can listen in. Okay. And this is just a community TV work locally here in Montpelier. Okay. And so what we want you to do, Natasha, is state your name and your affiliation and then just let us know how you feel about this issue. Hi, I'm Natasha Lewis. I'm from Castleton University. I'm a 24-year-old college freshman and I know that employers will notice my age. Many students start their college career directly after high school, but I was only given one option and that was to wait. My parents were the ones who fought hard through difficult times. And my mother, who was a mother of two, by the time she was 21, graduated nursing school. My father was a high school dropout and received associates with flying colors. This was in 1995. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and they taught me to do the same. However, they pulled themselves too high and by the time I graduated high school, my parents were in such a high income bracket that I didn't qualify for financial aid until the time I was 24. So I enrolled and just being in my first year, I'm pretty scared. Every week I hear another classmate of mine is dropping out because they can't afford to come back here, come back to Castleton University. And it's smart, hardworking young Vermonters who they want to contribute a lot to our state. They want to contribute to the teachers in the classrooms and the nurses in the hospitals, but if we don't have them in the classroom, then we won't have them in our workforce. And that's how I, that's my reasoning for this argument. Any questions for Natasha or anything else you wanted to say? I did bring the copies in Natasha's testimony. Wonderful, thank you. So if people could turn off their cell phones, no chiming, no dinging, no buzzing, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Natasha, I really appreciate your coming today. Thank you. So next is Kathleen Moore. She in the house, or the Senate as it were. I would like to give my spot to Erin to go to class. Sure, Erin, come on up. If there's time at the end, I will also be happy. Okay. I think we can fit some of that in your hand. Yeah, so we can stand. Should I wait to sit down or talk to anyone on a sit-down? It's easier for me to come here without me in a bit. Anyone else? Welcome. Thank you. How are you? It's nice to see you again. Nice to see you again. I shared a lovely dinner some weeks ago. I did. I want college's dinner. So Erin, what's your last name? Christian, just like the religion. Okay. So I am a CCD student. I'm going to be going to VTC this fall. To those of you who are decided to vote yes on this bill, I thank you guys a lot. Those of you who are on the edge and those who are voting no, I completely understand you have other considerations to take into account. Now, as I said, my name's Erin Christian. I'm a part-time student at the community college at Vermont. And I have a 3.9 for GPA. I'm in the statewide, I am the statewide community of student representatives, student leader. The community of student representatives is a CCD student organization, just so for everybody's information. I'm the one who kind of coordinates statewide with our coordinator, Pam Monder. I also serve on the academic council at CCD and I am a student with a documented disability. I'm speaking today on behalf of the full-time, the part-time and those of us dealing with the disabilities, those students. I'm one of the lucky few who has been able to go to college and continue on at VTC without having to take on loans. This is because I have grants. I've got scholarships. I'm one of those lucky few who has been able to achieve that. Now I'm speaking in favor of this bill because I think it's absolutely a fantastic idea. But I want to speak specifically on about the part-time students in the disabled who would not be covered by this bill, this particular bill. Now CCD is traditionally done for non-traditional students. These are students who are above the normal age for college students, but also students who are going, who are dual enrollment or early college education. But specifically the people who are above college age, these students are usually working full-time or part-time. And the requirements of this bill that I have read through is that you have to be a full-time student or have a documented learning disability. For CCD students, particularly this is very difficult because of that different marketing demographic. You're gonna be dealing with students who are trying to go and make sure they're paying their bills on time and having housing, but also trying to get a quality education. The requirements of this bill of having to go full-time or have that learning disability documentation will limit either their ability to work or their ability to get a quality education. Those of us with disabilities, beyond the learning disabilities, have a similar problem. Myself, I have an anxiety related disability. Obviously you can't see it right now, but it makes it very hard for me to go full-time. I go full-time, I'm worried about am I going to get everything done correctly, stuff like that. So in order to do well, I have to take on a part-time course load. And as I said before, with the ability to do that, I have a 3.94 GPA. I only have one V plus on my transcript. I have served on the academic council from the school and I have, as I said, I am the CSR statewide representative. These are things I can do because I have the funding. These are things that I can do because I have the understanding of I have this disability and I'm able to take the time I need to pursue my degree. And I wonder if I am able to do this, if I'm able to do this with that understanding, with the time and all that, what about other people? What about other people with disabilities who need that? What else could we accomplish? Thank you. Thank you very much. Questions for Erin? Thank you for being here, I really appreciate it. Thank you. So next on my list is Ryan. So Ryan would like to call in at this time of the end. Okay. He's on call. Deb Snell? Deb Snell injured herself on the state house steps on the way in, so we'll be submitting her testimony. Okay. Linda Olson. Thank you. All right. No, that's a new question. Here's some copies. Oh, okay, that's fine. We had heard a rumor about Room 10, but we didn't have any additional information. Do you know whether Sid- Somebody texted me, whoops. Was that you, me? Somebody texted me, could we go to Room 10? There was a question, but we didn't have time. Oh, who was texting you? That was me, Heather, right in time, Jim. Yeah. Oh, I thought that was- So at Room 10 is open, let's- We have no idea. It is. We've been waiting in there. What I'm saying is it may be open, but there may be somebody who's reserved it. Heather said it was open, so we need to try and see it. Yeah, I don't want to move everybody only to find out if Republican Caucus has it reserved or something. Right. Linda Olson, thank you. Last time we've had this, it's not strictly about Republican versus Democrat. I'm saying that Room 10, when people have reserved it, you respect whether they're using it right at that time or not. That is my only point, Senator Branigan. My only point. Thank you, Senator Branigan. Indeed. Linda, take it away. My name is Linda Olson, and I am a longtime faculty member at Cassleton University, and I'm also the vice president for higher education for AFT Vermont. I appreciate the opportunity for being able to speak on this topic. Vermont currently ranks 49th out of 50th in terms of state support for higher education, depending on what figure you look at. We actually are 50th in some figures. Not good either way. For the past few decades, state funding for public higher education has dwindled. In 1980, state appropriations covered 51% of the budget at the Vermont State Colleges. For example, now it covers just 14. I believe that number for UVM is under 10. The remaining tuition costs falls almost entirely on students and their families, which places a significant financial burden on Vermont families that students in other states do not have. The students attending our public institutions pay one of the highest tuition in the country and graduate with more debt on average than students in other states. In Vermont, we have one of the highest high school graduation rates, and we should be proud of that, but only 40% of our students go on to some sort of post-secondary education, and that we should not be proud of. I can't help but think a significant reason for this is the cost of college in Vermont. When the VSC was created in 1961, the enacting language promised that the state would support us in whole or substantial part. The state has fallen down on that promise. Because Vermont has not adequately supported its colleges, especially in the VSC, we see kind of a level of precarity where we are always on the brink of something. Four years ago, it was BTC. A couple of years ago, it was Johnson and Lyndon who are now unifying to safe costs, and now it's Castleton. In Governor Scott's state of the state address, he discussed the fact that Vermont has an aging population, I think on average 52, which is how old I am, which is really old. And for the health and survival of Vermont, it's critical to attract and keep young people to live and work in Vermont. I couldn't agree more with Governor Scott on this. Our college tuition for all Vermonters to the Vermont State Colleges or the University of Vermont will enable us to do that, free college tuition. Providing free tuition would benefit Vermont in a number of ways. Our research shows that when students stay in Vermont for college, stay in Vermont for college, they are more likely to stay after graduation. Free tuition would encourage more of the 40% of students who don't go on to college to do so. Free tuition would mean our Vermont students would be graduating with less debt, enabling them to buy homes and settle in communities more quickly. If these young folks stayed in Vermont and worked and raised their families here, this investment in public higher education would be an investment in Vermont's future. And I think it's an investment worth making. Senators Pearson and Polina have proposed Senate Bill 231, excuse me, which would create a study committee to figure out how to restructure education tax based on income instead of property value. This progressive income tax would generate 30 million additional dollars, which would support the Vermont Promise Scholarship and most Vermonters will see no increases in their taxes. Vermont's investment in public higher education today will help Vermont families strengthen our education system and invest in the future of our state. Thank you again for the time you're talking about. Questions for Linda? Not most of us make a comment about 51 being old. I said 52, to be fair. Those of us almost 62. I was going to say, in this building, that's not old. Yep. So we have an exodus to room 10. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So welcome, everyone. I'm sorry to have missed opening of the committee and the early test time. I had to go beg in appropriations for the things that we want to be funded. But I'm very interested in tuition-free scholarship programs, both general and specific, so thank you. Thank you very much for this opportunity. From my part, I want to emphasize the idea that higher education is a public good, not just a private benefit. Can you just introduce yourself for the record? Oh, yes, and I am Tom Streeter. I'm a professor of sociology at the University of Vermont and I am president of United Academics, the Faculty Union of the University of Vermont. And so I agree with the previous commenters. I think the general message is that deep investments in higher education floats all boats. I think usually more effectively than cutting taxes does. And I think there's an argument case to be made that you can explain most of what was good about the 20th century in terms of deep investments in higher education in many countries around the world. I think there's a danger in speaking of free tuition as if it were a series of benefits that translate merely into a little bit of income or jobs for this or that group. What we're talking about is not free as in free lunch or free beer, free tuition is free as in free society. Free tuition is about building the world in which spot knowledge and imagination are the fabric of everyday life. That all those things are not just a secret society for the privileged few. The high school students these days are told, come here to this college for success. Come to college so you can get ahead. That's a private benefit. And at the University of Vermont we talk about competition all the time. Like so many research universities across the country, UVN ends up trying to pay for our bills these days by charging very high tuition to students from out of state. And in order to attract those students we get stuck in what my colleague Beth Mintz calls the amenities treadmill. We build expensive amenities like a grand student union because that's what our competitors in other states are doing. And the dilemma is that eventually all of us, all of us universities that are competing for these students have grand student unions and we have to pay them off. And so we have to jack up tuition. The competitive edge disappears, but the cost does not. And so we raise tuition even further to pay for it all and students go further into debt or get priced out completely. That expensive amenities treadmill does a lot of help explain why only 30% of UVM students come from Vermont and which is down from more than 50% about 30 years ago. Free tuition changes the economics of a university like UVM and it puts pressure downward on cost rather than forcing us to try to use amenities and other marketing tricks to attract students from out of state. It's true that access to higher education will help the child born into modest circumstances make a higher salary and need a better life. But a 10 year old from a modest background in say Winooski should be able to look at that big university across the river and see not just economic opportunity, but inspiration. A possibility of a wider, more open life. Too often the only message that a kid like that gets is that whatever goes on at that place it's too expensive for them, it's not for them. And that shapes a kid's life regardless of whether or not they're gonna head to college in the long run. Now, talking about higher ed as a public good sounds very grand and idealistic I know. But to be honest, I think we have no choice but to speak in these terms. We have a hard job ahead of us. UVM needs to be part of this legislation by principle and politically. Without at least some net gain for UVM in this effort I don't think the effort has much of a chance. But why should Vermont taxpayers foot part of the bill for say teaching and research about the mathematics of complex systems or neuroscience or Indo-European languages? The answer is that we all benefit from a more curious engaged, smarter society. We are in dire straits nationally in part because the skyrocketing cost of higher education is effectively denied ordinary people access to the means for understanding why climate change or evolution makes sense. And then as professors wonder why some people have come to distrust us and distrust everything we say. I think we really need to start talking about how the general public can benefit from thriving and accessible higher education. That general public benefit is not a particularly quantifiable thing, but it is real. The academic and scientific research, the personal growth and intellectual questioning which happen inside colleges radiate outwards like the ripples of a stone dropped in a pond. They make things better, more open and more creative for everybody. So yes, we need free tuition, but not free as in free lunch. It's free as in free society. Thank you very much. Great, thank you, Tom. Catarina Lasaitis, can I pronounce that right? Lasaitis, lots of owls. Representing Senator Bernie Sanders. Yeah. So thank you Chairman Barouf and the Senate Education Committee for the opportunity to say a few words today. I'm here not to support any specific state legislation, but rather to speak on Senator Sanders' views and efforts on the larger issue of college affordability. I would also like to relate his sincere appreciation to the committee for taking up this critically important issue. As you know, Bernie is also a member of the Senate Education Committee in the US Senate and in that position he has proposed legislation to make public colleges and universities tuition free. Bernie has long believed that higher education should be a right of all people, not a privilege for the few. Today in America, hundreds of thousands of bright young people have the desire and the ability to get a college education with the desire and ability to get a college education will not be able to do so because their families lack the money. This is a tragedy for those young people and their families but is also a tragedy for our nation. How many scientists, engineers, business people, teachers, doctors and nurses are we losing because higher education in this country is unaffordable to so many. And of the students who do go on to college, nearly 70% will leave school with some debt. This year, the average amount of debt for students graduating with a bachelor's degree exceeds $35,000. One in eight graduates will graduate with more than $50,000 and that's then outstanding student loans and that's not including the mountains of credit card debts that some students incur trying to make ends meet while they're in school. All told, 43.3 million Americans owe more than $1.48 trillion in outstanding loans. Instead of buying homes and starting families, graduates today face the daunting prospect of having to dig out from underneath that debt. It is no wonder that while the US once led the world in college graduation rates, today we are 10th. More and more students are simply unwilling to take on the mountain of debt needed to pay for the ever-increasing cost of college. It makes absolutely no sense to make it harder for students to get a college degree. It is a waste of human potential and a self-inflicted wound on our country. Today, in a highly competitive global economy, we have to have the best educated workforce in the entire world. While not all middle-class jobs in today's economy require some post-secondary education, an increasing number do. By 2020, 2 thirds of all jobs in Vermont will require some education beyond high school and these jobs tend to pay better too. Nationally, median earnings for a worker with a two-year degree will be about $360,000 more over their career than a worker with just high school diploma and a worker with a bachelor's degree has the potential to earn $1 million more. It's time we rethink how we view education. There was a time in this country when the idea of free universal secondary education was considered a radical idea, but there was a consensus that was, it was in the public interest to make high school available to all students, regardless of income. Given the importance of a college degree to so many people today, it is time we similarly made higher education accessible to all who have the ability and desire to continue their studies. We need to join almost every developed country in the world in offering free public colleges. They see the benefit to their people and their economies of making college affordable regardless of income. And let's not forget that not so many years ago, here in the United States, we did the same thing, at least in some states and with some groups of people. In 1944, we passed the GI Bill, providing a free college education to millions of World War II veterans. And that one piece of legislation is credited by many for the massive expansion of the middle class in the decades that followed. In 1965, average tuition at a four-year public university was $256, and many of the best colleges such as City University in New York did not charge any tuition. A worker could easily pay this by working a part-time minimum wage job. We must once again make this a priority, which is why Bernie has introduced the College for All Act to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. Three years ago, the bill had zero cosponsors. Today, it has seven cosponsors in the Senate and 35 in the House. We're making progress, but we still have far to go. It is also why he's held a number of events focused on students' plans after high school, including one this coming Monday. In Vermont and throughout the country, there are millions of low-income and working-class families with kids who do not know anybody who graduated college. Their parents didn't graduate college and they are thinking to themselves there is no way that they are ever going to make it through college and into the middle class. While intended or not, society has made it clear to them that they are poor, their parents are poor, and they will continue to be poor and not college material. It is our mission to give hope to these young people. If every parent in the country, if every teacher in the country, if every student in the country understands that if you study hard and do well in school, you will be able to go to college if you desire, regardless of the income of your family. That will be a revolutionary impact on primary and secondary education in the United States or here in Vermont. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please pass on our thanks again for the workforce internship event that Senator Sanders did with us earlier in the year. Absolutely. That's continued with former discussions and economic development. Wonderful. Susan Steinke. Good afternoon. I'm Susan Steinke with AVIC, the Association of Vermont Independent Colleges. Last week I was interviewed by Jane Lindholm on Vermont edition and she said that after a minute and a half, people stop listening. So I am going to be brief. Although the 16 private colleges would like to support of the Vermont Promise Scholarship Program, we can't support it as it's currently written. We do support a higher appropriation for Vermont public colleges and we appreciate that many of the people who testify today and will be testifying want to support the public institutions. We think that support should come in through the front door with a higher appropriation rather than in a form that might disenfranchise Vermont students from getting an education in Vermont that best suits their educational goals and an institution that best meets their needs. Our institutions, public and private alike, play a pivotal role in economic and cultural prosperity in Vermont and this bill risks undercutting our state's ability to retain some of Vermont's most talented young people. There are students whose interests might not be served or met by a large state university or a college in the Vermont state college system. From a public policy point of view, it makes the most sense to use scholarship funds to allow students to attend the best, the college that best fits their needs and studies have shown that where students are most comfortable, they do the best. As you know, each college in Vermont is unique and there's a variety of majors offered by private institutions that are not available at public institutions. To limit the program to only public institutions hurts not only students, but the workforce needs of the state. A few of the majors that are available at the private institutions and not the public ones include cybersecurity, digital forensics, water resource management, culinary arts, astronomy, economic crime investigation, broadcasting and streaming media, game design and conflict resolution. In addition, the bill provides for students with learning disabilities and we have one of only, I think, five colleges in the country that focus on students with learning disabilities, Lamar College, so they could not take their scholarship to Lamar. Many students are interested in degrees that are not offered by the public and they may go out of state since the scholarship program doesn't apply to the Vermont colleges. The fact that this bill would place our private colleges at a disadvantage to recruit our own Vermont students is harmful to our students and growing a strong Vermont. It places us at a disadvantage without a state institutions. It would create potentially an incentive for students to leave the state who, for whatever reason, prefer to attend a private college rather than a state college. The capacities of all sectors, including the independent sector, must be harnessed if state goals of keeping youth in the state and increasing the workforce are to be reached. Excluding private colleges is contrary to what our economy needs to thrive and limits the in-state opportunities for Vermont students. If this bill is about supporting Vermont students and what's best for them educationally, then we think the bill should be revised to include scholarships at post-secondary institutions up to the applicable tuition resident rate at UVM. Thank you. Thank you very much. Margaret Crowley. So my name is Margaret Crowley. I'm a case manager at the Chittenden family court in Burlington. I'm also the unit chair of the legislative committee and I'm here representing VSEA and all of its members. And our statement is that we do support S-231 and for our members and for middle-class Vermonters across the state, the cost of tuition is making attending college an unattainable goal. We also believe that our Vermont state colleges are an incredibly valuable asset and this legislation would infuse it with a serious investment that is desperately needed to maintain and grow the system. If the governor and political leaders are serious about keeping young Vermonters in the state and about retraining current workers to fill new jobs, this proposal is the single best thing you could do to support those goals and Vermont's economy. Our state colleges are also employers. The VSEA represents roughly 200 clerical and technical workers on the campuses of state colleges and this legislation would have been an investment that grows and protects those institutions. Institutions in the most vulnerable, economically challenged areas of the state, areas that have not yet recovered from the Great Recession and which we're not doing well before it. So we appreciate your consideration of this legislation and we hope that you will support it. Thank you. Thank you. Alison Duhamel. Hi, I'm Alison Duhamel. I'm representing the Vermont NEA and I'm here to say that I do support this. When I graduated from high school, I decided to go to a very large school in North Carolina because it was a big college experience for a little bit of money. Quickly did I learn that I did not flourish in a large college, so I decided to go to Castlesman University. It's where my mom went. I knew a little bit about it, but it was a lot more expensive for a much smaller college experience. My Castlesman experience, however, was extremely positive. I was part of student government. I founded a teaching group on campus that was connected to the Vermont NEA. I was a community advisor, like an RA, and I worked for admissions. My experience out of Vermont State College has made me the person I am today. Now I teach second grade at a school in Rutland County and recently we went on a field trip to Castlesman to compare a big school to a little school. And half my class of 60 didn't know where the college was, even though we lived about 20 minutes away. They never stepped foot on the college campus. Many of their parents had not gone to college and during the morning meeting that morning, many kids said, I don't want to go to college. Second graders already deciding I can't go. I don't want to go. What is this place? After our field trip, which was amazing, we had a group discussion again and they were so positive. They were like, that place was amazing. I want to go to college now. And it was just really exciting to see kids who were so close-minded before due to lack of experience become very excited about the opportunity. And I think the college experience can help create a lot of awesome community members. I think giving that opportunity to all students in Vermont is positive. And I think it could really benefit our community. Thank you. Thank you. So we have two witnesses that we will reach by phone. They've asked to testify through the end. Is there anybody else in the room who wants to be heard on the issue? Ma'am, if you can just identify yourself and make sure that our administrative assistant has your correct spelling. My name is Kathleen Moore. It's Kathleen with a K. Oh, okay, that was true, sir. I thought we were gonna reach you by phone. I was on earlier and I gave my spot to a student who is here. Okay, yeah, so. My name is Kathleen Moore and I teach at the Community College of Vermont here in Montpelier. And I'm also a faculty coach for the TRIO program which serves low-income and first-generation students. And also do some disabilities. It helps them reach their goals to succeed in college. And I'm speaking here today as a member of our CCB United Faculty Union. We've recently formed our union. And I applaud this committee for taking testimony. Thank you. As you know, as you've heard, Vermont regularly ranks at or near dead last in funding for higher education. And what you might not know is that CCB serves the highest number of Vermonters in the state and yet receives proportionally the least amount of funding. And so that means that while CCB has the lowest tuition in the state, it also has one of the highest tuitions of any community college in the country. And that's problematic for our individual students and their families and for our state as a whole. So while Vermonters graduate, you've heard this also from high school, very high rates, the rate of continuation to college is poor. And I have to believe, as Ben stated already, that one of those reasons is because the cost of attending is formidable, even if you're simply trying to get your associates to grade. So I don't also have decided that an educated populace is the foundation for building a state where good jobs, good bank jobs are the norm, or that an educated population is the foundation for citizenship and for democracy. And I'm here today though, because I wanna bring a special focus to the first generation low income students with disabilities that I see a lot of. Many students are both working, they're rearing children, they may be single parents. And because many of the students are low income, they face a number of additional challenges related to getting their education. They may have housing issues, they have childcare, they have physical and mental health issues, they have transportation issues, and they may even have issues with school supplies. Sounds like a small thing, it's not. Those needs would be easily dealt with in a middle class family with resources, but for low income students, these issues create barriers to learning and to completing their education. For instance, in just the last six months, I've had students with struggling with domestic violence, with significant mental health issues, with housing issues, and with persistent physical health challenges. Either their own or a family member that they're responsible for. These are clear obstacles. So even small challenges such as a broken computer, seems like a small thing. You go to Staples, you get fixed. They don't have the money to repair a computer. And it stops them. It stops them from doing the reading. They got the cheaper book. It was on the computer. The computer's broken. They cannot read their textbook. They're falling behind. They can't write a paper. They're falling behind. I have seen students fail for this reason because they have to keep working. They cannot take what we would consider a small thing and take care of it in order to continue their education. So that's who comes to our door. Wanting an education, wanting to change their lives, wanting to contribute to their communities. And there's plenty of obstacles without tuition being one of them. And that's how you get what you've heard about, which goes also with that. So I don't want there to be more barriers to the most vulnerable in our population to achieving their education and being contributing members of our community. So I also am very aware that we're a small state with limited resources. And some may ask, well, how could we possibly afford free tuition? And my question is, how can we not afford to educate our people? It really is important. So the world's changing rapidly. I know you know that. And Vermont's has is to keep up. We have to educate our citizens. So I hope that the committee will consider some more progressive approaches to taxation in order to make appropriate funding a reality. And the last thing I want to say is that I know the bill as written, restricts to this restricts its benefit to students who can attend full time. Most of our students cannot do that for all the reasons earlier mentioned. So as this bill progresses in whatever form it takes, I urge the committee to make some shifts in order to make sure that everyone can benefit. Thank you. Thank you very much. So anyone else in the room would like to be heard. After these two last witnesses, Judy will have the phone. The phone witnesses changed his mind. Oh, he did. Give you a class. Good night. Hello, I'm Heather Juliusson-Stewinson and I teach at the Manchester Tutorial Center. And I want to tell you a personal story about myself. Both of my parents were veterans in the Vietnam War. They tried very hard to go to college on the GI Bill. They couldn't do it while raising me. And it broke their hearts. And so they did everything they could to make sure I could go to college. My father got a job at a university and the bookstore. And because of that, I got free tuition. Unfortunately, because of competition with online stores, the bookstore closed right before my senior year. I had nearly a 4.0 GPA. And I was grandfathered into my last year. But with the stress of all of that, my father had a mental breakdown and he went to a hospital. And it tore my family apart for several years. I was able to graduate and I went on working full-time to get my PhD. But now that I have my PhD, the jobs that you can get with a new PhD, it would be better to work packing bags at a grocery store. You do not make enough to live on. You certainly don't make enough if you have to pay off grad school bills. If you want to be able to support colleges going forward, you need to be able to have jobs for people to teach them. So I love children. I want to teach them. This is what I love to do. I can't do it in a university system right now because I wouldn't make enough money. It's a whole system that goes together. So I really hope that you do think about this and do what you can to build a better tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. And Colin. Senator, I just wanted to, our student chapter president, we have around eight chapters of different schools from Cassington University prepared some written comments. His name will be here, but I was wondering if he would be okay in the alley. I'll read them into the record. So I am speaking for Daniela Dolan, who is a senior at Cassington University who is studying history and to teach high school. So my name is Daniela Dolan. I am from the Upper Valley and I am a senior at Cassington University. When I started college in August of 2014, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed freshman. As the months went along, I realized that I did not have enough money or loans to pay the remainder of my second semester's bill of $6,000. I was scared that I would have to drop out and give up on my dream of becoming an educator. I had zero credit and my parents did not have the best credit either. Through Castleton, I found out that I could apply for this loan called Parent Plus. At the time, I knew nothing about it and my parents didn't either, as I was the first in my family to go to college past an associate's degree. My mom hesitantly cosigned and I was free to register for classes in the upcoming fall semester. I was beyond thrilled that my mom had done one of the largest favors I could have asked her. Unknowingly, I stopped my mom from getting the loan she needed to continue her education. The same situation happened the next semester when I needed to take out even more loans, which resulted in another $4,000 of a Parent Plus loan. Thankfully, I was hired as a community advisor, RA, which paid for my room costs for the upcoming five semesters. As of May 12th, 2018, I will owe just over $40,000. It may not sound like a lot to some, but for a young adult going into the teaching field, it's a very scary number. In three short weeks, I'll be walking across a graduation stage, diploma in hand, and I'm sure of what the future holds. The only thing I am sure of that starting in June, I will need to start paying back my Parent Plus loan. And in November, I will have to have a job where I can support myself, along with paying back the rest of my student loans. Yes, in a month and a half, I will need to have a good paying job that allows me to pay back not just one, but two student loan payments. Throughout high school and college, I've competed in pageants to win scholarship money for school. And one question that I was asked is how would you keep graduating college students in Vermont? I have thought about this question a lot the last few years since hearing it, and I think I have figured it out. Right now, college graduates are leaving Vermont in the masses because they need to find higher paying jobs in order to support themselves, along with paying back their student loans from attending college in Vermont. My question is, if tuition were free, wouldn't that create less debt for Vermont college students, giving them a better option of staying in Vermont? I know that I am going to have to move out of state because even though I love Vermont with my whole being, I need to be able to learn a living wage. $30,000 to $40,000 a year is not a comfortable living wage, and I would be scraping by week to week. During my exit loan counseling that is required to graduate, I found that as a first year teacher living alone, after bills, student loans, food and gas, I would be negative $500 every two weeks. Let me repeat that. As a young adult who has spent four years earning a bachelor's degree, I will still not be able to afford basic living in the state of Vermont. If you really care about Vermont and its residents, we will do what is best to make tuition free and affordable for all. You might just see the population of the state increase, meaning more tax revenue to build a better tomorrow. Thank you for your time, Danielle LePullen. Thank you. So thank you, everyone. That was wonderful. And I will say that this bill and a few others like it have come into our committee. We've historically not had much luck moving them beyond our committee, but there is a larger discussion going on now about education financing in general. It draws on some of the ideas that eventually became this bill as 231. So I'm not without hope that the tuition piece will remain part of this larger discussion, but it helps us a great deal to have your personal stories as we are before it. So thank you very much. We'll go back to our room now and you're welcome to join us, but probably a better thing to do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.